The present invention relates generally to a network and communication system used by emergency personnel and more particularly to a network and communication system for use therewith.
Firefighter or other first response personnel systems with combination location/tracking, electronics and sensor monitoring indoors/outdoors are very helpful in emergencies. It is very desirable for an incident commander to be in contact with his/her personnel and to monitor their location, the electronic sensors and electromechanical equipment they carry with tracking capabilities at the scene of an emergency. Conventional systems have relied on personnel arriving at the scene of an emergency and deploying temporary stationary transceivers, such as beacons, repeaters and antennas inside and outside a building or structure in order to relay information to a central base station. The deployment of these stationary transceivers is necessary to relay information to/from personnel in the building. Further, the stationary transceivers are sometimes used to triangulate the personnel's location.
However, stationary transceivers are large, heavy and require large amounts of power. Additionally, stationary transceivers, once deployed, are difficult to recover or find after the emergency is over, because stationary transceivers are typically lost or destroyed by the firefighters, emergency, or military personnel on the scene. Further, deployment of such stationary transceivers is time consuming and is often not practical under typical emergency circumstances. Also, an incident command officer on the scene may need to have instant communication to and from emergency services personnel on the scene. The location of the central base station may not be convenient for an incident command officer to obtain all of the information needed to efficiently perform his tasks or to obtain this information in a useful format. In addition, sensor monitoring systems used by emergency services personnel are usually provided with logging systems to log essential or legally required information when in use. This information must be downloaded and archived after use of these systems. Known archiving systems are inconvenient in that they require a physical connection between the sensor monitoring system and the archiving system.